How eclipses proved that the Earth is slowing down

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The material contained in this document is based upon work supported by a National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA) grant or cooperative agreement. Any questions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this materials are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.
Without eclipses, our world would be a lot different because eclipses give us the ability to do science we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Corona: the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere.
- General Relativity: a theory of gravitation developed by Albert Einstein that says that the observed gravitational effect between masses results from their warping of spacetime.
- Lunar Eclipse: an eclipse in which the moon appears darkened as it passes into the earth's shadow.
- Solar Eclipse : an eclipse in which the sun is obscured by the moon.
- Tidal Friction: strain produced in a celestial body (such as the Earth or Moon) that undergoes cyclic variations in gravitational attraction as it orbits, or is orbited by, a second body.
CREDITS
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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music
MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
neptunestudios.info
OTHER CREDITS
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Photo of 1919 Total Solar Eclipse
Credit: ESO/Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl/F. W. Dyson, A. S. Eddington, & C. Davidson
www.eso.org/public/images/pot...
OUR STAFF
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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke
Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes
Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich
Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida
OUR LINKS
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KZbin | / minuteearth
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REFERENCES
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Espenak, Fred. “NASA - Eclipses and the Saros.” eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros.html
Guglielmi, Giorgia. “Three Times Scientists Learned Something from Solar Eclipses-and Three Times They Were Tricked.” www.science.org/content/article/three-times-scientists-learned-something-solar-eclipses-and-three-times-they-were
Interrante, Abbey. “NASA Selects 5 Experiments to Study 2024 Total Solar Eclipse.” NASA, 20 June 2023, www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/sun/science-in-the-shadows-nasa-selects-5-experiments-for-2024-total-solar-eclipse
Littmann, Mark, and Fred Espenak. Totality : The Great American Eclipses of 2017 and 2024. Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2017
Perkins, Sid. “Ancient Eclipses Show Earth’s Rotation Is Slowing.” www.science.org/content/article/ancient-eclipses-show-earth-s-rotation-slowing
Redd, Nola Taylor. “Here’s What Scientists Have Learned from Total Solar Eclipses.” www.space.com/36785-solar-eclipse-science-throughout-history.html
Steel, Duncan. Eclipse : The Celestial Phenomenon That Changed the Course of History. London, Headline Book Pub, 1999.
Stephenson, F. R., et al. “Measurement of the Earth’s Rotation: 720 BC to AD 2015.” Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, vol. 472, no. 2196, Dec. 2016, p. 20160404, doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2016.0404

[@davidtitanium22]

i just made the connection that helium is named after the sun (helios) because it's first discovered on the sun

[@EightOneGulf]

You just blew my mind... :D

[@imsyed5]

And who discovered it on the sun?

[@alexmcd378]

So many words are like that. You learned them without knowing why they are like that. For me, trilobites was the big one. Tri-lobe-ite, because of the three lobe structure

[@imsyed5]

@@rickkwitkoski1976 wait, so the first time we discovered the Helium element was because of the light it reflects?

[@alphaapple1375]

Indeed, Helium is one of the chemical elements. It is naturally formed by nuclear fusion⚛ which takes place in the Sun🌞, where the hydrogen atoms are forcibly fused under the very high pressure and temperature, which happens in the core, generating energy that forms sunlight☀ and heat🔥 that made life🌻 on Earth possible🌎🌍🌏.

[@Finkelthusiast]

Absolutely amazing that Helium was first observed on the Sun before it was found on Earth.

[@Mike__B]

I mean it really doesn't exist in the atmosphere I believe it's kinetic energy at standard outside temperatures gives it a speed greater than the escape velocity of Earth (ditto with hydrogen), and the only place we get it is buried deep underground

[@N12015]

And that's why it's called Helium, from the Sun god Helios.

[@PlanetAstronox]

I always thought the most remarkable thing about solar eclipses on Earth is that the moon and sun, coincidentally, have roughly the same apparent size in the sky. Equally by coincidence, humans are around to see the spectacular eclipses made possible by this, since the moon was closer in the past and is drifting further away. There very well may not be another planet in the entire galaxy where you can see eclipses like ours from the surface of a planet. Edit: Looks like the sister channel MintePhysics has a video going into much more detail about this kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWjQh4RpoLeDrJo

[@stevechance150]

Proof we are a simulation.

[@epic-17]

​@@stevechance150bruh

[@squeaksquawk4255]

@@stevechance150 Or maybe it's proof that we're lucky. Or proof that a large moon is required for life. Truly, we don't know

[@9nikolai]

@@squeaksquawk4255 Or maybe it just vastly increases the odds of life, or advanced enough life to be detected

[@aenetanthony]

@@9nikolaiHow detectable would life on Earth be by aliens thousands or millions of light years away?

[@cerosis]

But never look directly into one!

[@MinuteEarth]

Exactly.

[@TrafficPartyHatTest]

My eyes are strong! I can stare into one as long as I want!

[@guest_of_randomness]

@@TrafficPartyHatTest me too when i eyes could still see!

[@adityaphanindra]

Unless you are the president of the US

[@AshrellStudios753]

I used to always look straight into the sun

[@babilon6097]

Wow! I knew eclipses were good for studying the sun. But having it tell us something about the earth? And using ancient measurements to effectively conduct a millenia-long experiment? No pun from me today. I'm astounded.

[@CheckmatedMC]

You could say you're *astrounded.*

[@borgar226]

Haha

[@brendanrisney2449]

@@CheckmatedMCmy thought exactly

[@thewrecker2974]

I KNEW THE DAYS WERE GETTING LONGER

[@MinuteEarth]

AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!

[@wingedalpha]

It's because we keep wishing there was more time in a day!

[@lemagicbaguette1917]

@@MinuteEarth does rocket exhaust move fast enough to escape and thus slightly push Earth?

[@Merennulli]

Sadly most of the increased day length seems to be on Mondays.

[@user-et2dx5du7e]

and increasd days dosent mean i can finish homework

[@semipenguin]

I used to live in Athens, Tennessee. In 2017, I got to see the Great American Eclipse, as totality passed through our small town. It was awesome.

[@thebeautyofuniverse5250]

Just wow, it’s fascinating how capable ancestors in the past were to track it

[@Naidnapurugavihs]

Excellent work as always! It is fun to learn an astronomical amount of information on several different topics from the research and record of a single event! 🌎🌎❤❤

[@ethribin4188]

The deeper you delve into it, the more do you realuze just how much the moon has done for humans and life on earth. And considering how unusual and rare this kind of size ratio between planet and its satelite is, the moon might actually be one of the major factors (together with water, temperatures that allows all 3 states of water on the planet and a strong magnetosphere) that has allowed life to appear on earth.

[@julianaylor4351]

I don't know if you'd ever seen the old British horror/science fiction black and white film, The Day The Earth Caught Fire. In the film, the first sign that something had happened, was a solar eclipse that happens too soon. In the film's story that meant that the Earth had been knocked off its axis and out of its orbit, moving towards the Sun. That was caused by two simultaneously enormous nuclear tests. The plot used that astronomical event as its start point and then introduced all the meteorological events, realistically, as known to science, when the film was made.

[@JohnJCB]

Cant wait to see those 2 eclipses!

[@MinuteEarth]

same here! Some of us live close enough to the path of next month's eclipse that it is an easy day trip. We are going to try filming it, possibly

[@Ascend777]

@@MinuteEarth Upload it please. I'm too far in Ohio

[@raya.p.l5919]

😂❤ Jesus power. 😮 FREE. Warning it is intense. Last 30 minutes. Best to relax and shut yr eyes

[@joshuaespinoza8325]

2:07 "on a lighter note" I bet that flew over some people's heads

[@mrdraw2087]

Does this eclipse analysis take into account the Moon receding from the Earth? It's currently receding at a rate of about 4 cm per year, so its orbit increases by about 12 cm per year. This alone would increase its orbital period by about 1/10.000 second, given its orbital speed of about 1 km per second. Over time, these tiny bits add up, so the Moon's position could change quite a bit as a result.

[@arduous222]

Why wouldn't they? After all, moon receding from Earth is exactly the same phenomenon as the Earth rotation slow down -- you cannot have one without having the other.

[@runnergo1398]

There's a pretty good 2008 movie called Einstein and Eddington that shows what Eddington went through to take that eclipse photograph to prove Einstein's theory of relativity was correct. The things devoted scientists will go through is absolutely amazing.

[@MaxArceus]

I prefer the old thumbnail and title, about why the earth is slowing down, with the nice drawing. KZbin stats will say I clicked on this with the new thumbnail, making you think "Ah, updating the thumbnail worked!', but in my single datapoint case, it didn't. I simply hadn't gotten around to it yet.

[@pyeitme508]

Woah 😳

[@justincronkright5025]

Recreating different phainomena that existed in the past, but are far less likely now or could exist in the future (although the past's greater energy density is more fun) should be done a lot more than just on science fiction programmes!

[@neskey]

So cool ❤

[@Absbor]

great episode

[@stevechance150]

I'll be in Texas on April 8th, 2024 for the big show!

[@dylan.t180]

Amazing video

[@MasterHigure]

22:05 Unless you care about sub-meter precision, GPS functions just fine without taking relativity into account. It would drift about 15cm per day, and even from the start of the project, the satellites got weekly updates. It is common to claim the drift would be closer to 10km per day, but that ignores a fundamental part of how GPS works: it measures the time difference between satellite signals, not the absolute arrival time. If they are all delayed the same amount, the fact that they come 10km later is irrelevant. What does happen, though, is that the internal orbit calculation of the satellites become wrong as they have an incorrect clock, so they aren't where they think they are when they send their signal. And this error would increase by about 15cm per day.

[@AllofUs6]

22:05?

[@Terrinist]

slow rotation of earth = more hours = MORE FREAKING SCHOOL 😭😭

[@mhkhusyairi]

Thanks!

[@mwm48]

I’m in Mississippi. I want to bring the family to the April eclipse, where should I go? What are some good places?

[@guest_of_randomness]

this vid is a nice one~

[@MinuteEarth]

Thanks, we appreciate that ❤️

[@rickseiden1]

I live right in the middle of the April 2024 eclipse. I have my glasses and I can't wait!

[@davidpacheco268]

For those interested, there's a movie that was made around the proving of Einstein's relativity theory (the experiment mentioned in the video where photos were taken of the sky while there was an eclipse happening and while there was not), which explains the specifics much more in detail than our darlings at Minute Earth can in a 4 minute video. The movie is called "Einstein & Eddington" and is currently on HBO, I believe

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

I heard about the total solar eclipse! Its gonna hit maine, the state im in, which is apparently extremely rare, so im excited wether or not i get to see it in person

[@jeremykraenzlein5975]

Did you get to see it? I live in Michigan, but was in Ohio that day and got a great view of the eclipse!

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

@@jeremykraenzlein5975 my family went up state to see the total solar eclipse but i didn’t join them because i wanted to sleep instead

[@Mykasan]

amazing what we do when we look up to space.

[@Alex-js5lg]

"Retrodict" - I learned a new word today.

[@lyleblue6739]

That October eclipse goes right over a furry convention in San Antonio that weekend

[@statelyelms]

I've been waiting for the 2024 eclipse for half my life now, at least. My hometown is right in the path of totality! We might head upriver to get most totality we can muster but.. dang!

[@michaelcurley7002]

Cool

[@martinlisitsata]

for those who may wonder : agog - full of intense interest or excitement / excited and eager to know or see more. We were all agog to hear the results.

[@whazzup_teacup]

Doesn't even basic laws of motion predict that earth slows down? Only in ideal conditions would an object spin infinitely at the same velocity.

[@MinuteEarth]

Of course - and we can measure with a high level of precision how much the Earth's rotational speed is slowing right now with atomic clocks and all that fun stuff. But because of a bunch of reasons like plate tectonics and pesky ice ages, Earth's deceleration is not constant (sometimes more, sometimes less). So eclipses were a pretty clever way to find out the average deceleration at least over the last few thousand years or so.

[@anandthakkar4435]

Is that black hole from bfb on the thumbnail?

[@TheMushCove]

In 1000 years we’re going to have ten minute earth💀

[@qlifee]

If the rate of slowing down of earth rotation is 1.8 ms per 100 years, then how does a mere 0.04 seconds difference in 136 BCE shift the location of the eclipse thousands of miles in the east?!

[@jasond4084]

Exactly! Where are the editors? Minute Earth is big enough to check their work!

[@qlifee]

@@jasond4084 Maybe there is an explanation, because everywhere on the internet the same thing is said, I only think this is worth further explanation, maybe by another video. I really want to know the answer.

[@stephendavies5968]

A day may only have been 0.04s slower back then but there have been a lot of days between then and now

[@jacobely6826]

1.8ms a day equates to roughly one minute per century (65.7 seconds) but the real kicker, is that its compounded, with each previous century being an extra minute ontop of the previous one. for example the last century was a minute longer than this one, the mone before that was a minute longer than the previous and so on. even just the sum of 5 centuries in the past adds up to 15 minutes... and it only gets more and more compounded from there. by the 10th century you're starting to add more than 10 minutes for each century before it, by the 20th century 20 minutes. the final 3 centuries alone equate to over an hour of time difference. in fact let me right out the full sequence in minutes. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23. add all these numbers together, then add the remaining 6 (rounded) seconds per century i omitted for simplicity, which is 6x23 so 138 extra seconds lets round that to 2 minutes for simpicity and you can see you get 276 from the squence, + 2 to 278, divide that by 60 to get the hour total and you have 4.6 hours... the moon is gonna be in a vastly different spot 4.6 hours behind where it was in 136 BCE with science often focusing on such lengthy time periods of millions of years or billions of years we often forget how long a century really is... when talking 1.8 ms it sounds tiny, but when stretching that over a century it quickly balloons, and this also really demonstrates how powerful compounding numbers really are. if it was a static 1.8ms a day it would amount to little more than 20 minutes, but because that 1.8 ms keeps stacking with each passing century it quickly spirals to over 20 minutes longer just for one given century if you go back 2000 years..

[@qlifee]

​@@jacobely6826wait.. the video says 1.8ms per century not per day, do you mean that the day will increase by 1.8ms everyday and after one century it will increase by 1.8+1.8 ms per day?

[@alphaapple1375]

For those who are familiar with the metric system: On screen at 2:05: "1 d, 10 hr (3,362 kilometers on Google Maps)"

[@DemPilafian]

I would argue that most Americans already can better estimate one km than one mile. A mile is pretty far to have an intuitive sense of its distance. We already run 5k races and watch the 100-meter track and field event. Lots of Americans are familiar enough with metric to know that a km is 1,000 m, but very few of us remember the number of yards in a mile. The main part of a football field is 100 yards. Since a yard and a meter are somewhat similar, 10 football fields is roughly a km. I would bet more Americans know that than how may football fields are in a mile.

[@dariohermosillo]

Also worth noting, be careful on that road. NEVER take it if it's dark

[@xvie_z2900]

2:39 can someone tell me what's the name of this kind of experiment

[@leopure112]

02:06 🎶"Nos vamos pa' Mazatlán"🎶 🎶"Nos vamos en la blindada"🎶 🎶"Que nos siga la plebada"🎶 🎶"Nos vamos en caravana"🎶 ¿Quién jala para ver el eclipse en El Cid con toda la plebada y en la pisteada? Saludos a toda la banda.

[@thunderblossom8114]

Don’t forget the Earth also tilted at some point, giving us the Sahara Desert and who knows what else

[@eliscerebralrecyclingbin7812]

cool

[@moniswith5iq]

How do you gather this information with this much detail

[@valentinaaugustina]

which information exactly?

[@moniswith5iq]

@valentinaaugusta5146 about any topic like for example how he researched about the eclipse topic and how it is used for so many inventions

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

I always thought it was cool how we have a rock that is just the right size and distance from our sun that can create such an event. I often wonder if it is unique/rare to our planet or very common in the universe

[@ngtony2969]

That logic is utterly backward

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

@@ngtony2969 how so?

[@ngtony2969]

@@HarryBallsOnYa345 it's equivalent to thinking it's cool that a randomly shaped hole has the exact same shape as the puddle of water in it. It's an idiotic Christian fallacy "I always thought it was cool how we have a hole that is just the right size and shape for our puddle of water that can create such a perfect fit. I wonder how unique/rare this is." The answer is, if your logic is backwards, then it's the opposite of rare/unique, it happens 100% of the time. That hole will perfectly fit your puddle every single time.

[@Xapheus]

@@ngtony2969 The thing with the shape of a puddle (A) VS and the shape of the water it contains is that there is a causal connection that makes them necessarily the same shape as one another. This is: "a puddle will contain only water with the same shape since the water fills the puddle's perimeter" is universal. It's true every time, like you said. But that doesn't apply to this "apparent size, from the surface of a planet, of that planet's star (A) VS that planet's moon (B) (or moons?)" there is no causal connection. They're completely independent of one another. If our sun were a bit bigger, would the moon grow in size as well? Or would it just be closer to us? No, this equivalence in apparent size could be rare, common, unique, and everything in-between. We could conceivably be the only planet in the galaxy with the same apparent size at this time, but with billions of "rolls" for each starbound planet with at least one moon gravitationally bound to it, I'm sure it happens in other places and times, too. Aside from space and back to fallacies and logic: I can tell you're referring to the Anthropic Principle, especially since you followed up by mentioning it's a principle used by Christians to argue, I assume, for the wonder of creation or something? "How rare is it that our universe can sustain human life? Amazing" being countered with "That's only because humans can only exist in universes where that question can even be asked." Your heuristic in reading the parent comment was a false positive identification of the anthropic principle. Happens to all of us humans and that's why fallacies exist in the first place. Haha, I guess one could say yours is the logic that ended up backwards this time. (Truly meant in good spirits) -- Bonus deleted tangent: The equal apparent sizes of our Moon and our star haven't always been like this on our own planet with our own Moon. It won't always be like this either, since the Moon is drifting away (slowly) without the sun shrinking. Eventually, the Moon won't have enough apparent size to eclipse the sun. Our planet will have a final eclipse (unless the sun explodes by then, I don't currently have an intuitive sense of the timescales.)

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

@@ngtony2969 so your saying that every planet has a moon that is the exact size and distance from itself to fit its Solar systems Star? Dam dude that's amazing where did you hear about that? i bet you are one of those depressed people who believe nothing in life is cool? why are you even on this site?

[@Mex_Luigi]

I think the original title is better but I understand ya gotta test these things out

[@wolfsatyr]

1:55 do you mean to say they took a photo of the same stars later in the year? cause later that night the stars wouldn't be visible, cause they were next to the sun and it's night now.

[@ThaliaPeebles-eu7gn]

Wow

[@culwin]

Everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

[@TheSpencermacdougall]

So, does this mean at some point in the somewhat far futhre, the earth won't rotate, and it will turn into that half frozen, half boiling planet from that episode of Futurama with the talking alien cats?

[@KrisinaCrossing2011]

By then earth would be a worse hell then Venus and also dead

[@GrrAargh1]

It likely won't have time to do so, before that can happen the sun will have turned into a red giant and the earth will be no more.

[@SashaTheArtist]

also this is also in time4learning if someone didnt know

[@Auroral_Anomaly]

*Stretches skin in amazement*.

[@StoopyXP]

Hah, the elements representing the missing colors of the sun's light. Nice. Idk why but I never expected that from you guys for some reason 🤷‍♀

[@rickkwitkoski1976]

Why? Because you don't understand absorption spectra? How about emission spectra? Same thing only different. Maybe you should go and study some physics, and in this case, quantum mechanics. Every element and compound has its own signature spectra of both sorts. This is EASILY determined through just LOOKING at such. Hydrogen Fraunhofer lines were some of the first to be recognized.

[@StoopyXP]

@@rickkwitkoski1976 Sorry to be rude, but telling an 11 year old to "go and study quantum mechanics" is a bit excessive don't you think? You're getting a little too defensive over something that isn't worth your time arguing over. It's just meant to be a funny joke, calm down.

[@massimookissed1023]

​@@StoopyXPSpectroscopy is how we can tell what elements are present in distant atmospheres, like helium in the Sun, phosphine at Venus, and even distant exoplanets. Also Mars rovers zap rock with lasers then look at the light spectrum of the cloud of vaporized rock to see what's in it.

[@Insightfill]

2:35 Astronomer looking directly at the sun during an eclipse. Me: "Dude! No!"

[@jinjunliu2401]

This thumbnail made me think the video wasn't going to be about helium 🫠

[@glendadhw0walterldd266]

is it 6 or 2pi

[@gonesville6873]

Nibiru is getting closer

[@habibi9223]

But if earth is slowing down then why it feels like time is running so fast...?

[@TurboLoveTrain]

The solar observations assumed the sun is a plasma. The sun is liquid metallic so the distortion observed was atmospheric not relativistic in nature.

[@AdityaMehendale]

How can one tell of the 1:18 length of the day has increased or instead, the period of the moon has decreased?

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

Well, the result would be different, like the complete opposite actually. Simplifying things a bit, if the days are shorter before while the period of the moon remains the same, then it takes more "day" than usual for each eclipse. On the other hand, if the period of the moon is much faster while the Earth rotation remains the same, then it takes less "day" than usual for each the eclipse. Think of it like this. Say, each month has thirty days. If the days become shorter, then you need more days to fill the same month. On the other hand, if it is the month that becomes shorter, then you need less days to fill the month. It is much more complex than that but you can clearly see with just this that the results would just be the direct opposite of each other.

[@AdityaMehendale]

@@rosverlegaspo6752 What I understood (not said literally in the video) is as follows: The earth is slowing gradually - milliseconds per year. We can refer back to historical eclipses, but no clock in 2000BC was so accurate that we can count back the few seconds of cumulative slowdown. (Worse yet , Gregorian/ Julian calendars did not exist back then). In the special case of eclipses, fortunately,, we _can_ look at the place, instead of the time. The trajectory of the eclipse could be indicative of slowdown (of the earth). Recollect now, that the eclipse needs both, the sun, as well as the moon. My question is: How do we know if the earth is spinning slower or (instead) the moon is going faster. It is likely that I misinterpreted, or misunderstood some detail.

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

@@AdityaMehendale Again, because they would give different results, the complete opposite in fact. That is, the trajectory of the eclipse would be different. If you look at the graphics, you could see that to match the actual path to the predicted path, you have to give the Earth a little turn backwards, and you need to turn the Earth more and more the further backwards in time you go. That turn would essentially gives more "day" than actually predicted (if Earth's rotation remains constant). And as I said, more day, faster rotation. On the otherhand, if the moon is going faster before, then the intervals between eclipses would be shorter then. Thus, there would be less "day" between each eclipse which is the complete opposite of what we observe. If it was the case that the Moon was faster then, the actual path would be on the oppposite side of the predicted path compared to what we obseve now. It is more complex of course but that is the gist of it. Faster Earth, more day; faster Moon, less day.

[@AdityaMehendale]

@@rosverlegaspo6752 Ehh.. i was arguing for _slower_ Earth vs. faster moon. - not faster vs. faster.

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

@@AdityaMehendale But your original comment said a decreased period of the Moon, i.e. slower Moon. But then, it is confusing if you mean now or back then. I assume it was now since we have longer days now. That is we compare if the Earth has become slower now or the Moon become slower now. The faster Moon I was talking about in the previous comment was the Moon being faster back then, thus slower now. If the Moon is faster back then, then we have smaller time/day between eclipses. And even if say, the Moon is faster now than back then, then the complexity of the Solar System comes to play. The Moon has to be in the exact place at the exact time to create an eclipse. If the Moon is earlier of later, no eclipse. A faster or slower Moon means a change in eclipse patterns. A faster or slower spinning Earth doesn't affect this though, just the path of where the eclipse would be observed. This is more difficult to grasp so I didn't serve this. And if that is still not enough for you, or you still can't wrap your head around it. Then how about this, there are other observations that say that the Moon is slower now than back then (by a very miniscule amount), thus faster Moon is not viable leaving you with a slower Earth. The thing is, we don't base our Science in one dats point. We look several evidence.

[@SuperLol]

wait, pardon my ignorance, but couldn't it also be that moon is observed to move further from earth over time, which means they'll take longer to reach the position over time? Like could this be a stronger explanation than the fact that earth is slowing down? Ofc i'm not denying but just checking if it's the sole factor since i immediately thought of the moon at the start of the video. I'd love to be educated (if i haven't been explicit enough yet ahah) expecially if there other other proofs that earth is slowing down

[@ArtUniverse]

Earth's rotational energy transforms into Moon's orbital energy, causing it to recede from out planet.

[@SuperLol]

@@ArtUniverse oooh that makes sense

[@nitricoxidegod]

👍

[@brendanrisney2449]

WAIT don't tell me that helium is named that because it was discovered in the sun's corona I will not be able to handle that information

[@SoftYoda]

1ms per century is enough to bend thousands of kilometers across two millenia ? And the moon is enough to bend light visible by eye ?

[@ivantheczar]

To be precise, it means EACH day is 1.7ms shorter 100 years ago.

[@honodle7219]

We've known for a very long time that Earth's rotation is slowing down very slowly. There is no 'suspecting'. It's a known fact.

[@Norsilca]

Wait, 1.8ms per century? Did you mean per day or something? Because that can't cause the phenomenon you showed. That would be under a second even after thousands of years, which wouldn't noticeably change where an eclipse appears.

[@ChristaFree]

We literally have just had the two fastest days in earth's history. Lol

[@1.4142]

Oct 14th!

[@hcn6708]

Why does Cameron sound a lot like Clint from Clint’s Reptiles

[@MinuteEarth]

I've been told that before - I don't have a good answer for "why" we sound alike, but it's close though ;)

[@hcn6708]

@@MinuteEarth Your sprite also looks like it could be Clint’s! When I saw a short about the different genera of elephants (including mammoths and Palaeoloxodon) I was like “IS THAT CLINT?) I can’t find which video it came from tho, F

[@CassiniA312]

0:02 those guys are literally seeing nothing, in totality you can't see the sun's corona with the eclipse glasses, you need to see it with the naked eye

[@Viniter]

For Europeans, look out for a chance to enjoy a total eclipse on a beach in the northern Spain in the summer of 2026. A perfect holiday destination, if you ask me.

[@DJBillionator]

Actually, we know it is slowing down because they are eliminating daylight savings.

[@johnwilliams7314]

I have two questions is it bad? And doesn’t global warming speed it up as well?

[@RawbLV]

Why would it?

[@kemcolian2001]

1. no 2. no

[@RidingBones]

1.8ms per century? and we get that from old recorded rock tablets? I mean... is my math that off?

[@ericjohnson6665]

Yes, eventually the Earth will slow to the point where a day will be 28+ days long, and one side of the Earth will always face the moon, just like the moon always has one side facing the Earth.

[@frey8725]

Actually, we can tell that the Earth speeds up and slows down because sometimes the wind feels faster and other times it feels slower. 😂

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Why does the thumbnail look like a sparm swimming towards an ova?

[@norbertnaszydowski4789]

you can look at the sun through the telescope twice

[@tomwickland]

Gosh, I just can't figure it out. The numbers seem to me to be off by a couple of orders of magnitude.

[@tomwickland]

Oops. There's 100 years in the century so that's the two orders of magnitude.

[@LordShkazn]

3 different thumbnails and titles, each referencing a single factoid and none representing the full video. kinda annoying.

[@PhysicsPolice]

music too loud especially the bass

[@DemPilafian]

Hey MinuteEarth, Just so you know you can adjust the settings on your mobile device to fix the units to show metric instead of imperial. For a science education video, the correct display for *Missoula* to *Mazatlán* is _"1 d 10 hr (3,362 km)"._ 2:06

[@ahreuwu]

I'm constantly annoyed by the imperial units (and how we all have to deal with videos that use them because they're from usa), but I don't think this is a big deal. It's just a screenshot for a topic mention that lasts for 2 seconds. It's not the key information from the video. Also, I don't think metric is The Correct way of showing it, miles are just another unit of measurement and it's not incorrect just because it's not metric. I'd appreciate if we all could start using metric for everything, but it's not a big deal.

[@DemPilafian]

@@ahreuwu True, showing imperial units for 2 seconds is not the worse crime in the world. However, I still stand by my assertion that imperial units in modern science qualifies as _incorrect._ ;)

[@Veronica_1116]

Why is looking at a solar eclipse bad for your eyes ???

[@Siddingsby]

0:18 The Chinese didn't have a system of writing in 2137 BC. I know that having an Ancient Mesopotamian guy 3 times in a row doesn't look as cute but you're expected to educate, not misinform.

[@Psychopl0]

0:18 PAPIEŻ

[@PuncakeLena]

The Earth isn't the young whippersnapper it once was you know. At some point you have to acknowledge you're getting old and slow down a bit

[@nuneke0]

What a strange coincidence that the moon blocks the sun just right during an eclipse, isn't it?

[@EdbertWeisly]

Happy Equinox Day!

[@eenayeah]

Wait, huh? At 1:58, the same picture taken at night, how did they know the center of the image if the sun and moon were not there anymore? A picture centering on the wrong thing could naturally make the stars look like they're in a different spot..

[@briansammond7801]

I suspect that they use stars further away from the location of the sun to align the image. Basically, you take an image of the overall sky, centered on where the sun would be, and everything lines up, except for those whose light would pass near the sun.

[@eenayeah]

@@briansammond7801 Ah, makes sense! Thanks!

[@richardl6751]

Also, the overall sky picture would have been taken six months before the eclipse when the dark side of the Earth was pointed that way.

[@nankinink]

Or maybe they used the polaris star as a frame of reference? Not sure

[@barrymccaulkiner7092]

Pro tip: if you have a welding helmet you can watch the solar eclipse with no issues.

[@SashaTheArtist]

the videos of this

[@MrDudeStemming]

If you don’t think there’s a god, how do you think living things live?

[@somemagellanic]

chemistry?

[@vpvnsf]

@@somemagellanic biology

[@nsTurkish]

Turkish subtitles please

[@MarcColten-us2pl]

Oh, so when you get it right you take the credit. But when you get it wrong it's the earth's fault. You sound like my parents.

[@jerotoro2021]

Heliophysics... "Education Activation" Team? What is education activation? NASA: ... well... ...??? NASA: That was the only way we could get it to spell HEAT... You gotta stop doing this NASA. Not everything needs an acronym that spells an English word. NASA: If it doesn't make a word, it's not real science.

[@VladIsLove22]

Corona in many slavic and maybe European languages means crown, just some info for you comment wanderer

[@somemagellanic]

the word comes from latin, so its no surprise it shows up in a lot of places

[@VladIsLove22]

@@somemagellanic thanks for additional information

[@blu_wae]

if 1 day haves 25 hours then i have more time to sleep

[@ledgeri]

Come on, if you tell how the Moon slows down Earth's rotation, tell how this slings the Moon further (Earth's spin speeds up the Moon), so we will reach a point when thee will be no total eclipse!!!